After hearing complaints about printers from students and faculty across campus, Covenant College has finally decided to replace the old printing system.
Though the printing process was fairly straightforward, the system and machines were famously unreliable. Students told horror stories of printers adding spaces to big papers or failing to work entirely.
“I format my papers correctly, but whenever I print them out, the printer messes things up,” Esther Brantley ‘25 said. “It’s really frustrating!"
The campus got 36 new, higher-quality printers and copiers over Fall Break. A maintenance team will visit weekly to troubleshoot and prevent future issues so printer problems at Covenant can be a thing of the past.
“Our main focus is to provide exceptional service to Covenant students and staff,” said Michael Goolsby, the new director of business operations. “We’re excited about the capabilities and hope everyone on campus will dream big to make the most of that.”
After struggling with Covenant’s previous printing service, Goolsby pursued other options. He worked with the company Edge Business Systems to create a new maintenance agreement. The school leased new machines and got them serviced for the same cost of maintaining the old fleet of printers.
“When it came to the decision, it was a no brainer,” Goolsby said. “The machines themselves provided extra service to our campus community as well as opportunities for cost savings and even revenue generation.”
The business operations team carefully chose printers and copiers to meet needs around campus. Some were moved to more centralized locations and some changed in size depending on how often they were used.
“The [printer] on the first floor of Sanderson Hall was woefully undersized,” Goolsby said.
Using a new service called Papercut, the school will collect data on how students use printers around campus. This new addition is one step in their process of updating resources around campus. The data from Papercut should help Covenant address specific needs and better serve the community.
“I’m really happy about their interest in improving the overall student experience,” Drew McCambell ‘25 said.
Covenant recently updated their FURF system, now called the Events Reservation System, to streamline the space reservation process for everyone involved.
“Just like the new printers and copiers, the purpose of that is to provide better services to the students, staff and faculty that use our spaces,” Goolsby said. “It is hard to determine which spaces to invest in if we don’t know which ones are used the most.”
The mailroom printer got a huge update over fall break and can now provide the community with higher quality services. They plan to expand the print shop in the future. One of the many new printing options is full bleed posters. Posters now fill the entire page, rather than leaving white edges.
Athletics and other departments should be utilizing these high quality services, according to Debbie Toth, who oversees the campus post office. “It’s what we’re here for!”
“We're investing in a system that can provide a great product but if you’re not coming up with ways to use it, it’s worthless,” Goolsby said. “It’s up to you guys to find new creative ways to use it.”